140 Characters – Press Release | 140 Characters 140 Characters – Press Release 140 CHARACTERS: A Style Guide for the Short Form By Dom Sagolla, Co-Creator of Twitter “One could change the world with one hundred and forty characters.” – Jack Dorsey , Co-Founder of Twitter San Francisco, CA – Twitter – the 140 character online service that allows users to share, discover and connect with anyone, anywhere in the world – has abruptly swept the globe, taking many by surprise. Business owners, celebrities and regular Joe’s alike have unabashedly criticized or made fun of the medium, rather than fully understanding its purpose, potential, and power. Several books have been written by “social media experts” trying to explain the secrets behind Twitter and how anyone can use it to their advantage. Convincing companies to incorporate Twitter into their marketing strategies has become easier since competing companies have seen phenomenal results.

However, according to Dom Sagolla, a co-creator of Twitter and author of the new book, 140 CHARACTERS: A STYLE GUIDE FOR THE SHORT FORM (Wiley; $17.95; Paperback Original), “The constraint of 140 characters is an opportunity for creative self-expression of all kinds. With Twitter and the short form, we have inadvertently invented a new genre of literature.” With 140 CHARACTERS, Sagolla shares the way to develop a personal voice and make the most of your messages. 140 CHARACTERS aims to do for Twitter and other social networking sites what Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style did for good writing via lessons in grammar and composition. “Fragment. Then there is a sentence. Sentences become paragraphs. Inch by inch, a book is written.” – Dom Sagolla “The talkative habits of e-mail and superfluous chatter will be replaced by poetry and one-liners, the haiku and the hyperlink,” predicts Sagolla. In a world of three second attention spans, the short form is not just confined to Twitter, but also Facebook , LinkedIn , and text messaging.

One will have to learn to say more with less: if there is a smaller word that means the same thing, use it. If there is a link to a reference, shorten it. “Wherever possible, use fewer words,” explains Sagolla. “This is harder than it sounds, but once you get past the basics of grammar you start getting into the really interesting aspects of poetry and word design.” Most of the advice in 140 CHARACTERS is focused on helping the reader to find the right words. A handbook for an emerging class of writers and journalists, this book is written to include readers in the evolution of Twitter and the short format. “We’ve defined a mere 1% of what Twitter is today. The other 99% is up to you.” – From the Foreword by Jack Dorsey The print and digital download is accompanied by an interactive Hypertext Edition for iPhone , published by Sagolla’s company DollarApp. See 140characters.com or twitter.com/thebook for details. About the Author Dom Sagolla (San Francisco, CA) helped create Twitter.com. After attending Swarthmore College, he worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom.

Dom earned his Masters in Education from Harvard University in 2000. Since then he has helped engineer Macromedia Studio, Odeo and Twitter, Adobe Creative Suite, and now produces iPhone software with his company DollarApp in San Francisco. His successes include the official Obama ’08 iPhone App, as well as two iTunes Staff Favorites: Big Words, and Math Cards. @Dom has over 9,200 followers on Twitter as of September 2009, and manages more than 25 other brands. 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form By Dom Sagolla How Twitter Was Born | 140 Characters How Twitter Was Born 957 Comments Twitter was born about three years ago, when @Jack , @Biz , @Noah , @Crystal , @Jeremy , @Adam , @TonyStubblebine , @Ev , me ( @Dom ), @Rabble , @RayReadyRay , @Florian , @TimRoberts , and @Blaine worked at a podcasting company called Odeo, Inc . in South Park, San Francisco.

The company had just contributed a major chunk of code to Rails 1.0 and had just shipped Odeo Studio, but we were facing tremendous competition from Apple and other heavyweights. Our board was not feeling optimistic, and we were forced to reinvent ourselves. “Rebooting” or reinventing the company started with a daylong brainstorming session where we broke up into teams to talk about our best ideas. I was lucky enough to be in @Jack’s group, where he first described a service that uses SMS to tell small groups what you are doing. We happened to be on top of the slide on the north end of South Park. It was sunny and brisk. We were eating Mexican food. His idea made us stop eating and start talking. I remember that @Jack’s first use case was city-related: telling people that the club he’s at is happening. “I want to have a dispatch service that connects us on our phones using text.” His idea was to make it so simple that you don’t even think about what you’re doing, you just type something and send it. Typing something on your phone in those days meant you were probably messing with T9 text input, unless you were sporting a relatively rare smartphone.

Even so, everyone in our group got the idea instantly and wanted it. Later, each group presented their ideas, and a few of them were selected for prototyping. Demos ensued. @Jack’s idea rose to the top as a combination of status-type ideas. @Jack, @Biz, and @Florian were assigned to build version 0.1, managed by @Noah. The rest of the company focused on maintaining Odeo.com, so that if this new thing flopped we’d have something to fall back upon. The first version of @Jack’s idea was entirely web-based. It was created on March 21st, 2006. My first substantive message is #38: oh this is going to be addictive We struggled with a codename and a product name. “It’s FriendStalker !” joked @Crystal, our most prolific user. The userbase was limited entirely to the company and our immediate family. No one from a major company of any kind was allowed in. For months, we were in Top Secret Alpha because of competing products like the now-defunkt Dodgeball .

The original product name / codename “twttr” was inspired by Flickr and the fact that American SMS shortcodes are five characters. We prototyped with “10958” as our shortcode. (We later changed to “40404” for ease of use and memorability.) @Florian was commuting from Germany, so in order to operate with him we secured a “long code”, or a full 10-digit phone number linked to a small-potatoes gateway. Twttr probably had about 50 users in the 10958 days. I was following everyone on the system. We had an admin page where you could see every user. As Head of Quality for the company, it seemed like my duty to watch for opinions or issues from our users. This caused confusion, though, when family members of our team were suddenly being followed by a seemingly random person. Thus, Private Accounts were born. @Jack and @Florian created a means for users to mark themselves private, and we admins had the ability to tell who wanted to be private so we’d know not to follow them. Actual, real privacy with secure protection came a bit later.

I’d say there were about 100 users when Private was invented. The interaction model and the visual metaphor for the service were constantly in flux. The meaning of being someone’s “Friend” versus “Following” someone changed regularly. At that point, you could either get all SMS messages or get none. There was no Twictionary back then; data in the system were referred to as “posts” or just “messages”. The lack of clear terminology led to some pretty spirited debates leading up to the Spring of 2006. We launched Twttr Beta on @Ev’s birthday. We could now invite a slightly larger circle of friends, but still excluding any large companies (with a few trusted exceptions within places like Google). I’ll never forget the family-friendly feeling of that day . We all knew that we were going to change the world with this thing that no one else understood. That day stands out in memory as the deep breath before a baby’s first cry. Meanwhile, Odeo and the corporate board were at a tension point. Not only was the value of Twttr difficult to describe, the relevance of Odeo was declining monthly. Drastic cuts were recommended.

One day in early May 2006, @Ev let four of us go: @Adam, @TonyStubblebine, me, and @Rabble. @Noah and @TimRoberts would later be asked to leave as well. It was a tough decision and huge shock to each of us. We all handled it differently. Looking back on it, I think Twitter allowed us to stay connected when we might not have otherwise been. After all, we weren’t even public with the site yet, so each of us continued to add value just by using it with each other. During this transition, Twttr.com launched to the public. Still, very few people understood its value. At the time most people were paying per SMS message, and so wouldn’t Twttr run up our bills? Also, how were we supposed to use this thing and who cares what I’m doing? Each one of us original users became a kind of personal evangelist for Twttr, trying to get our coworkers and friends to use it. At this point, Obvious Corp was born as an incubator with Twttr as its sole project.

@Jack was still just an engineer, and the service was only a few months old when the group acquired Twitter.com and re-branded. Back then, we had no character limit on our system. Messages longer than 160 characters (the common SMS carrier limit) were split into multiple texts and delivered (somewhat) sequentially. There were other bugs, and a mounting SMS bill. The team decided to place a limit on the number of characters that would go out via SMS for each post. They settled on 140, in order to leave room for the username and the colon in front of the message. In February of 2007 @Jack wrote something which inspired me to get started on this project: “ One could change the world with one hundred and forty characters. “ Just in time for SxSW, @RayReadyRay rigged a very sweet Flash-based visualizer that ended up on display on the halls of the conference. I wasn’t working there, but I used to visit regularly to see how our baby was doing. I happened to be at the office in SF when the visualizer went live on site in Austin. I remember finding a bug just before showtime, as @Biz and @Jeremy talked over the phone.

Everything miraculously fell into place by the time people filtered out of the sessions to see their comments floating along the hallway screens. Boom #1: Twitter won an award in the Blog category, and @Jack thanked everyone in 140 characters. MTV Music Awards : Boom #2. Apple WWDC 2007, and then TV, and then print and pretty soon Cable news: Boom #3. @Jack became the CEO of a newly spun-off Twitter, Inc. during the Boom Times. People still didn’t quite “get it” but at least some people had heard about it. The team created permalinks and RSS feeds. @Blaine pushed for IM integration. Each major feature added tremendous gains in users, and in usage per user. Still small by social networking standards, Twitter delivered something immediate and vital that no other service could attain. For a lot of people, the entire API launch was really the time when Twitter first left the nest. But that is another story, for another time. If you liked this post, you might enjoy following me: Update: An expanded form of this History is now available as the Introduction to “140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form” .

Product Description Make the most of your messages on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. The advent of Twitter and other social networking sites, as well as the popularity of text messaging, have made short-form communication an everyday reality. But expressing yourself clearly in short bursts-particularly in the 140-character limit of Twitter-takes special writing skill. In 140 Characters, Twitter co-creator Dom Sagolla covers all the basics of great short-form writing, including the importance of communicating with simplicity, honesty, and humor. For marketers and business owners, social media is an increasingly important avenue for promoting a business-this is the first writing guide specifically dedicated to communicating with the succinctness and clarity that the Internet age demands. Covers basic grammar rules for short-form writing The equivalent of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for today’s social media-driven marketing messages Helps you develop your own unique short-form writing style 140 Characters is a much-needed guide to the kind of communication that can make or break a reputation online.

Get your copy of “140 Characters” today from these fine booksellers: 140 Character Coaching - Player Development Project Player Development Project Reed Maltbie 140 Character Coaching PDP Contributor, TEDx Speaker & Executive Director of Star Soccer Club, Reed Maltbie delivers 10 practical steps on coach communication in the age of millennials who have grown up on social media. “One could change the world with 140 Characters”. February 8th, 2007 at approximately 6:57PM PST, Jack Dorsey “tweeted” this now famous line. At the time, Twitter was still in its nascent stages as a company. These words changed Twitter forever. Even in 2007 they wielded a powerful effect on the company and its small group of rabid followers, most of whom were still geographically centred around the West Coast. Today we can see the undeniably profound impact those words have had on a more global scale. The 140-character limit has changed the world.

News outlets, celebrities, heads of state, corporations, dignitaries, and even the regular Joe like you and I adhere to this 140-character limit, and tell our stories through it. We communicate more rapidly, more effectively, and sometimes more meaningfully through the 140-character medium of Twitter. Moments in history, with global reach, have unfolded on Twitter. Stories of massive impact have been told on Twitter. Games, shows, programs, and events are all shared on Twitter. Every single one of them encompassed in 140 character messages. The world has been condensed into 140 characters with tremendous efficiency. Twitter is one of the most compelling communications products of our lifetime. In 2007, Jack was addressing the need for change in his company. The service was borne out of the idea that people could send a text to a random number and have it broadcast to a group of friends who “followed” them. If Jack Dorsey wanted to tell all his buddies that the club he was at on Mission Street was “happening”, he simply needed to text one 5-digit number and they would all receive his message.

The short code system used by phone text messages, SMS, was limited to 160 characters. Anything over that number was split across multiple messages and this presented a problem. The coders were struggling with technical issues that arose with the large character sets. Minor headaches that could be fixed. Users were frustrated by receiving multiple messages strung together in succession. Again, fixable. Phone bills were racking up as multiple texts incurred multiple charges. All these were wholly fixable, but more importantly, Jack and his team asked the question that mattered most. It had nothing to do with technical parameters, message counts, or skyrocketing phone bills. It had a more meaningful mission. “Why can’t we say what is most important in less characters?” So Jack mused that one could change the world in 140 characters. He wanted to change his company’s operating parameters. He changed the world. Get Our Latest Articles Sent Direct to Your Inbox Every Week. Now Coders limited tweets to that number (140 allowed for 20 extra characters to include the user name). The world caught fire and the way we communicate has forever been changed.

The gauntlet had been thrown for us to prove we could convey meaning, provide detailed information, and share our most important stories in a concise and clear manner. Jack was prophetically, unequivocally right. The world did change. We have had hostage situations thwarted in 140 character messages. We told the story of US Airways Flight 1549 landing on the Hudson through the 140-character limit. We even announced the elimination of a terrorist threat, on a covert mission nonetheless, via Twitter. Twitter has taught us to tell our story in the most condensed and effective manner possible, and the world has embraced this concept. 140 characters allows us to take up very little space on a person’s screen and in their already crowded mind. It allows us to say what we need to say and get on with life. It certainly allows us to remember important information more easily (and the unimportant things too…I have seen way too many people’s pictures of food over the years and heard too many times when they were “going to the bathroom now”). Those 140 characters, and Jack’s prophetic words, also provide coaches and educators with a unique opportunity to grow their craft.

If 140 characters was enough to thwart a hostage situation or tell the heroic story of a pilot landing a 747 on the Hudson River, surely 140 characters is more than enough for coaches to instruct their players on what matters most. Coaches face the constant, uphill battle of trying to buy valuable headspace with their players. What we teach is in continual competition with school, social media, TV, video games, and more. Children are inundated with messages today more than ever before and the attention needed and retention required to learn and assimilate what we teach is in constant flux. We also run the danger of boring them if we talk too much. Today’s athletes think in 140 character spurts. It is their language. They don’t even use the phone like it was used in the “olden days”! If you want to talk to a millennial, text him. He won’t answer his phone. He will text you in brief, to-the-point messages. Smart coaches have figured out that if they can say what they mean in less time and words, they have a better chance at being heard and understood.

If they want players to learn and apply the important technical and tactical principles of the game, they need to speak the language of the players. 140-Character Coaching. I challenge you to become a Twitter coach for a few games and test the results. Learn to compress what you need to say in as few characters as you can, make it powerful and memorable, and then get out of the way and let them play. This type of communication is most effective in game situations, when time is of the essence. They have little time to listen and even less to make the adjustments you seek. As on Twitter, where you become more deliberate about what you say, so too in games, you must be concise and clear. It really is not vital to tell the world about every mundane detail of your day via Twitter. It is also not vital that you speak every moment of every game about every mundane detail. Find out what matters to the overall welfare of the team and the game and speak only about that. Do so in 140 characters too. Here are some hints for Twitter coaching in games: Focus on the immediate. If they can do it the very next touch or play it is worth discussing.

Keep the big picture in mind.As it applies to the entire team, whole game, and beyond. We want to learn about what applies to the big picture. Stick to tactical instruction. It serves the greater good. Single technical flaws in only one player should be done in private or in training when we can “work on it”. If you have to point out technical, make it something everyone is struggling with and something that is a simple tweak for all. If it is team-wide and easily adjusted, say it. “Stand goalside on corners”. Keep it on mission. It should align with team values and mission. Just as training sessions should stay on topic, so too should games. Only talk about what is on mission for that game or the season. Keep it upbeat. No one likes the Twitter feed that is constant whining or negativity…we “unfollow” that one. Make it memorable. Use rhymes, alliteration, or acronyms. I tell my little ones about the three Disney movies for scoring goals: Happy Feet, Speed Racer, Cinderella. They all know exactly what I mean when I “Tweet Coach” that during a game. Pictures rock.

Many have discovered that pictures on Twitter tend to get more engagement and impressions (35% or more seems to be the increase in engagement for using pictures versus text). Smart tweeters use the visual to get their point across to more people as well as make it more memorable. If you can “Tweet” a picture to your players during games, choose that over words. DON’T TWEET IN ALL CAPS. An all cap message appears as if someone is yelling at you. It’s annoying and puts most people off immediately. We cover the 100-10-1 rule in the next section as a way to know when and how to talk to players during games. In the mean time you should be aware of how close your players are when you instruct. Talking over a distance makes it appear as if simple instruction is “in all caps”(you are yelling at them). Also, I have witnessed many times where a coach makes a vital game adjustment in all caps and the other team adjust too, thereby neutralizing the change, because they heard it too. Don’t “Tweet” and Drive. One of the problems with Twitter was people were doing it behind the wheel.

We needed the reminder that sometimes it’s better to put the phone down and concentrate on what matters. As coaches, the game is their time to explore, so maybe we should “put the twitter coach” phone down once in a while and focus on what matters. Only “tweet” when absolutely necessary or you’ll wreck the game. Keep in mind the beauty of Twitter is being able to tell a story in 140 characters. If you can master the art of coaching games in “Tweet mode”, you will create better communication protocol with your players. They will listen more because they know what you say is meaningful and required. They will remember it more easily because it was concise and on point. They will want to apply it more regularly because you delivered it in their language. Good luck and happy “tweeting”. About the Author Reed Maltbie is the Executive Director of STAR Soccer Club – a 500 player club in Cincinnati, OH. He is also CEO and Co-Founder of reBoot, LLC . – a digital consignment shop for soccer gear. Reed is a speaker for Changing the Game Project , holds two Master’s Degrees – one in Sport Behavior & Performance and one in Early Childhood Education.

His experience and educational background in addition to his 2015 TEDx Talk (Echoes Beyond the Game ) have made him an internationally known expert in the youth sports field. Be on the lookout for his soon to be released book Echo: The Undeniable Impact of Effective Communication. You can find him on Twitter @coach_reed and on his website Jack Dorsey says Twitter is keeping its 140-character limit, but maybe don’t get too excited | TechCrunch Jack Dorsey says Twitter is keeping its 140-character limit, but maybe don’t get too excited Posted Meter Feeder lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS Has Twitter reversed course on plans to increase the character limit on tweets? That’s what you might think when reading the press coverage of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s appearance on The Today Show , but I’m not convinced that there was really a big change of heart.

You may recall Re/code’s report in January that Twitter was looking at a “10,000 character limit for tweets.” That didn’t mean, however, that epic tweets might just pop up willy nilly in your timeline — instead, only 140 characters would appear as usual, but you’d have the option to click and expand to see more content. Dorsey responded by saying that the 140-character limit is “a beautiful constraint” and that Twitter “will never lose that feeling.” At the same time, he pointed out that users often share screenshots of text on Twitter, in part to get around the character limit, so he asked, “What if that text … was actually text? Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted.” Lauer: But still 140 characters. Dorsey: 140 characters. In other words, yes, there will still be a 140-character limit on tweets. But what about embedding more text in tweets, the same way we can now embed images and video? Well, they didn’t discuss that at all. Maybe Twitter will do it, maybe it won’t, but Dorsey didn’t rule it out in this interview.

So did we really learn anything new? I guess if you were really worried that the 140-character limit was going to disappear completely, then yes, you can breathe a little easier. But otherwise, it sounds like Dorsey delivering the same message that he did in January. Featured Image: Kimberly White/Getty Images 0 Jack Dorsey’s Twitter (TWTR) To-Do List For 2016: 12 Ways To Prove The Network’s Value Jack Dorsey’s Twitter (TWTR) To-Do List For 2016: 12 Ways To Prove The Network’s Value 12/15/15 AT 3:41 PM Close Twitter is a household name and crucial to several billion-dollar industries across the globe. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” premiered an exclusive trailer on the site in November. Music mega-star Taylor Swift recently announced a movie project via Twitter (and Instagram). This year, President Barack Obama created a second account to push his agenda. And major news outlets still devote their shrinking budgets to perfecting the 140-character post. But Twitter is struggling. Wall Street demands millions of new users, and TWTR shares have languished.

Meanwhile advertisers are handing more dollars over to Facebook and app developers refuse to build on the platform. Enter co-founder Jack Dorsey, back at the helm of Twitter nearly decade after he typed this: “ just setting up my twttr .” Now he's once again tasked with turning around the global social network he helped create. In six months he’s shipped some major changes: new pages for TV , extended direct messages , more e-commerce options and what some have called Twitter’s biggest bet yet: Moments . He also laid off 336 employees in what he called an effort to create “a more focused Twitter,” the newly reinstated CEO wrote. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, has been back at the helm of the company for six months. For 2016, Twitter affiliates say there's a lot to do. Pictured: Dorsey speaks with CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Nov. 19, 2015. Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., has been back at the helm of his company for six months. For 2016, Twitter affiliates say there's a lot to do.

Pictured: Dorsey uses his phone to live-cast outside of the New York Stock Exchange, Nov. 19, 2015. Photo: Reuters/Lucas Jackson Previous Next “I believe that their issues have been magnified and their successes have been minimized,” said Rich Guest, of digital agency Tribal Worldwide. “That said, at some point perception becomes reality and so Mr. Dorsey needs to focus his efforts on shifting perception.” So what should be on top of Dorsey's agenda for 2016? International Business Times interviewed dozens of former employees, advertisers and active users to narrow Jack's to-do list to a dozen: 1. Redefine Twitter's Audience. Twitter's problem is that while it's big, it's just not big enough to be a must-buy for advertisers. “Facebook is a big driver. Google is big. Bing is big. We have direct relationships with publishers, and Twitter is not one of them," said Jordan Cohen, chief marketing officer of ad tech company Fluent. Twitter has 320 million “monthly active users,” or MAUs, which has been a standard metric for social networks since Facebook started using it in 2008.

That's nowhere near Facebook’s 1.55 billion, WhatsApp’s 900 million or Instagram’s 400 million. By those metrics Facebook increased its much-larger user base by 14 percent in the third quarter of 2015, while Twitter grew only 11 percent. But those numbers are deceptive in Twitter's case because they do not factor Twitter's logged-out audience, which accounts for another billion worldwide. The money is in the logged-out user. As MAU growth disappoints, Twitter should break away from that user number and look to views. “It expands the potential audience side almost immediately,” said Tom Edwards, chief digital officer of agency business for marketing company Epsilon. That would make Twitter look a lot more like Yahoo, which outperforms Twitter handily on ad sales. “Twitter's biggest problem is that so far they have only managed to convert 320 million users into $1.5 billion in revenues, while Yahoo, who is widely criticized for failing to convert, has half as many users but generate $4.5 billion in revenues,” said Phil Davis, CEO of Philstockworld.com .

“Perhaps when Marissa Mayer loses her job at Yahoo, she can come fix Twitter?” Twitter has received this memo on this and last week, COO Adam Bain announced that the company will begin placing ads in those embedded tweets, which could bring in $1.25 billion in revenue next year. 2. Improve Onboarding of New Users. For the newbie, joining Twitter can be an inscrutable experience. Under Costolo, Twitter did update its homepage and release a feature earlier this year to provide more suggestions on who to follow. Yet, Twitter experts were not impressed and say the current experience still seems confusing. “Twitter isn't something you learn on your own,” said Alex Taub, co-founder and CEO of SocialRank, a social media analytics company that has a service for identifying and managing Twitter followers. Twitter has been trying to add more users in part by putting its message into the mainstream. In October, Twitter ran 30-second TV commercials during the World Series. Another TV ad focused on the NBA was also created. “When the NBA is on, it goes off on Twitter,” the ad reads . But there are little features Twitter could add to make it more interesting and user-friendly.

“I hope they add 'read receipts’ when a celebrity (or maybe even a verified user sees your tweet),” said Niv Dror, who runs social media at online tech community Product Hunt. “It is CRAZY that … Twitter doesn't pop up a little notification when you start a tweet with a handle that says only people that follow you and that person will see this in their timeline,” said Taub of SocialRank. Go to Twitter.com as a logged-out user, and you will see a Pinterest-esque collage of tweets from popular accounts, such as media outlet Reuters, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and boy band One Direction. “While celebrities and established news outlets are great to instantly follow, if that's all you follow on Twitter, you are missing out on the awesomeness that is Twitter,” Taub said. Instead of simply promoting verified accounts with big followings, Taub suggested creating more curated lists based on a new user’s identified interests and showing those already made by high-profile accounts. 3. Search, Filter and Personalize Content. Twitter was the birthplace of the hashtag, yet the company has not made the most of the now ubiquitous feature.

“There’s no proper way to find hashtags unless it’s a trending topic,” said Rezab, founder of Socialbakers, a social media marketing company. It is also not intuitive to see what’s trending on Twitter, via the mobile app, the platform drawing most of Twitter’s traffic. While there are tabs for a user’s main feed, notifications, Moments, messages and the profile page, trending is absent. "They have so much data and information on their platform that they aren’t serving in any shape or form,” Rezab said. Even with that tap, there’s no immediate explanation to the reason behind trends. Facebook added clickable hashtags in 2013, nearly six years after Twitter, and some say they beat Twitter at its own game. While Facebook’s trending topics are also hidden in the mobile app, the network does show a line of context to explain why something is trending by employing a team to research and write them. Additionally, the following screen on the Facebook app not only delivers a feed of the top content but also separates for photos and videos. Twitter users plead for more control.

“I want to select specific genres, the medium (video, audio, stream or not) that I can rank or mute based on my interests and based on the time of day or other specific date parameters,” said Michael Davis, head of creative at marketing agency Conversant. The site’s updates to surface more personal content -- with “Suggested By Twitter” and “While You Were Away” -- could be a start. Twitter is testing non-chronological timelines, showing tweets out of order. #Twitter pic.twitter.com/c1k0zf3dh7 &mdash; Michael Q Todd (@mqtodd) December 11, 2015 Twitter has been “ monkeying around ” with the chronological order of tweets for a long time. Perhaps an option for “chronological” or “personalized” on the main feed could satisfy the power users while intriguing new users. 4. Make a Major Acquisition. Twitter started 2015 with two major acquisitions: live-streaming app Periscope and talent agency Niche. While Twitter may not be running ads on Periscope or Niche, both of those moves have helped the company prove its potential as a platform.

For 2016, Twitter needs to continue its betting game. “They can grow through acquisitions -- they must,” Rezab said. Several analysts suggested purchasing a longer-form blogging site. Both Periscope and Vine serve as microformats for content on Twitter. But there’s even more potential for building on top of 140 characters. Rezab highlighted LinkedIn’s acquisition of newsreader Pulse, now further integrated into the network as a content hub. Medium has its own editorial team to help curate content. In April, the site introduced a monthly blog to round up content by politicians. Photo: Medium “Twitter should buy Medium,” Rezab said and followed up with “freaking h---” once he learned that the blogging site was created by a Twitter co-founder. Ev Williams may not be eager to give up his startup to the company that ousted him as CEO. Twitter also might not be able to afford a startup that closed a $57 million funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, in September. Then there's Tumblr, which could be on the block once again now that Yahoo is back in play. “If Yahoo sells the entire internet business, then the private equity fund might sell Tumblr,” said Edwards, a tech marketer.

“Tumblr would be a much better fit into Twitter.” Flipboard has also been in acquistion talks with Twitter, according to Re/code , but there are plenty of options out there for curation tools. Niv Dror, the social lead at Product Hunt, suggests Nuzzel, which curates news tweets from your friends. 5. Build up Moments. Traditionally Twitter has relied on its users to curate tweets. The company decided to begin its own human curation of live content earlier this year. Twitter launched Moments in the U.K. Tuesday , but it needs to do more. “It’s time to evolve the beloved Twitter experience from just a microblog of scrolling into a content destination,” said Michael Davis, head of creative at marketing agency Conversant. “Encourage the development of an intuitive user-friendly control panel that turns Moments into actual channels.” This week, Twitter moved Moments to replace notifications as the second tab on Twitter's desktop. But analysts and users are asking for more product changes. Moments should be “a content control hub that makes me feel like I have my interests organized,” said Davis. He noted that Moments is difficult to search through and not yet personalized. Dorsey said in October that changes there is a company priority.

"Our focus with Moments is getting them easier to discover," he said . Advertisers also questioned the $1 million price tag for ad buys, referring to the reach as “hefty” without having a clear understanding of what's so great. Rezab, based in Prague, called for Twitter to bring the feature to the rest of Europe. While Snapchat launched Discover, its network of stories created by media partners, in the U.S. and internationally, and Facebook grows its Instant Articles initiative abroad, Twitter is just now exporting Moments. It should move faster. 6. Beat the Spammers, Trolls and ISIS. Nearly 10 years old, Twitter is still burdened with users who abuse the network and offend users, even caused some high-profile celebrities like Lena Dunham to move on. In February 2015, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo admitted that as a failure of his company. "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years,” Costolo wrote in an internal memo, obtained earlier this year by The Verge . “I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front.

It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing.” Before Costolo stepped down as CEO, he did begin taking steps to further address the problem. For example, in July, Twitter released a 1-minute video and a revamped online page called its "Safety Center" that both help educate old or new users on Twitter’s terms of services and practices. Learn how mute, block and report can help you take control of your experience on Twitter.&#10; &mdash; Twitter Support (@Support) March 18, 2015 The July update was preceded by several other changes. In March, Twitter released a new tool for creating summary reports of tweets that could be threatening. In April, the company tweaked the wording of its abuse policy to say, “You may not publish or post threats of violence against others or promote violence against others.” In June, Twitter introduced an option to sharing lists of blocked accounts to other users. Twitter has taken a clearer stance against terrorism and terrorist-related activity. Previously Twitter executives have casted the network as a channel for free speech, but of late, Twitter’s team have revealed its action stance into addressing reports.

For instance, on April 2, Twitter suspended approximately 10,000 accounts “for tweeting violent threats,” a company representative told the New York Times . 7. Add More Tools for Businesses. Business across several industries have invested deeply into customer management via social media. For example, Southwest Airlines has a team of 29 that respond to 80,000 posts each month from Facebook and Twitter, the New York Times reported . Yet some critique that Twitter has not done enough to support these business, other than creating the platform. “When you build businesses, then you create value for others and then they create value for you,” Rezab said. Meanwhile, Facebook is, again, starting to beat Twitter at its own game. Earlier this month, Facebook announced new tools for businesses to improve communication with customers. For instance, all Facebook pages have a redesigned inbox for messages that allow them to save notes about a customer and bring in their Facebook likes. While Twitter’s user data is far less sophisticated than Facebook’s, the company could still work to further build out the tools for businesses. “They need to redefine what messaging means within Twitter,” Edwards said.

Twitter did release a major update to messaging in 2015 when it expanded the character limit to 10,000 rather than the traditional 140. Yet, that simply puts Twitter at a level playing field for text messaging and Facebook Messenger, rather than adding something unique. Additionally, analysts suggested more partnerships with businesses. For instance, Phil Davis of Philstockworld.com recommended more integration like with Domino’s where customers can order pizza with an emoji. Now you can order Domino&#39;s by tweeting _. Find out how at &#10; &mdash; Domino&#39;s Pizza (@dominos) May 20, 2015 “Pairing up with, perhaps, Starbucks to prepare a coffee order or McDonald's for highway rest stops or even with Amazon for household supplies are all good ways to expand the program,” Davis said. 8. Prioritize Visuals and Immersive Content. Twitter users shares a lot more than 140-character tweets; they share photos, videos and news links on the network, but it needs to make this content more immersive.

“While Twitter began as an all-text platform, rich media has become essential to the experience,” Twitter product manager Akarshan Kumar wrote in a blog post . In August, Twitter tested new photo-editing and GIF features with a handful of partners but has yet to expand that initiative further. &mdash; Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) August 30, 2015 While Facebook prioritizes video and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks optimistically of the potential and his company’s big bet on virtual reality, Twitter is apparently sitting idly by. Both Facebook and YouTube now allow for 360-degree content. Twitter held an event called #VideoNow in October, yet it did not announce such a big endeavor. Instead, CEO Dorsey pitched his company’s response rate. “Twitter can show everything that’s happening in the world 10 to 15 minutes faster than any other service,” he said. Things happen on Twitter 10-15 mins before any other service.

-- @jack #VideoNOW &mdash; Twitter Advertising (@TwitterAds) October 8, 2015 Twitter did introduce rewinding and fast-forwarding videos shared on the platform by using a third-party app called ScratchReel . But Twitter could do much more with its internal video content, to encourage such sharing, and could better incorporate the other video products owned by Twitter: Vine and Periscope. 9. Connect the Ecosystem. Twitter spent millions on both Vine and Periscope, which both have grown their own communities of millions of users, yet the struggling company has not fully incorporate the products into the parent company. “When I hold a tweet, why doesn’t it go live on Periscope?” Rezab asked. The average Twitter user or a new user just joining the social network might not even realize Vine and Periscope are owned by Twitter. Facebook users can easily cross-post Instagram photos onto Facebook and quickly click back and forth from app to app. Facebook’s recently released public live video product is also internal to the main app. Periscope users suggested better integrating the two platforms. Twitter recently allowed users to display their Vine video loop counts and link to their Vine accounts on their Twitter profile pages, Vine announced on its blog .

V proud that my #vine loop count is now on my twitter profile. I take my #MusicThatDontMatch vines v seriously. &mdash; Yelena Perlin (@yelenalena) November 11, 2015 That same feature could be added for Periscope. Brands and marketers have been disappointed with Twitter’s treatment of the platform. “Our crew has been seeing it sort of tacked on at the end of Twitter decks, and even when it seems like a perfect fit for an idea, no one is really pushing it on us,” Zach Gallagher, director of digital strategy at Deutsch, told Digiday . 10. Grow Relationships with Developers. In 2015, Twitter cut off live-streaming startup Meerkat from access to its social graph. The company also suspended Politwoops, a site run by the Sunlight Foundation and dedicated to tracking deleted tweets by politicians. Until recently, Twitter's stance toward developers ranged from indifference to outright contempt. “I know some developers that will never build on Twitter again,” said Taub of SocialRank.

“If Twitter's dev relations team just communicates well and shares the roadmap and continues to just make sure people know what is good and what is not, they will be in good shape.” But Dorsey has said that he wants to improve his company’s relationships with developers. At a Twitter's Flight conference in October, Dorsey issued a public apology to the community. Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey begins with an apology during his keynote speech at Twitter Flight in San Francisco, Oct. 21, 2015. Photo: Taylor Layne Photography for Twitter “We want to come to you today and first and foremost apologize for our confusion,” Dorsey said. “We need to have this conversation with you, and we need to start this today.” Twitter has expanded its in-house developer advocacy team , growing it approximately three times to a total of 50 employees over the last two years. Related Stories How Twitter Convinced Developers Of Fabric’s Worth 11. Hire and Retain Diverse Talent. Prioritizing staff diversity must be on Dorsey and his executive team’s to-do list for 2016.

The company’s workforce is clearly homogenous, including only 1 percent African-Americans, 3 percent Hispanics and 13 percent women, according to the 2015 diversity report . Those numbers are in stark contrast to Twitter’s user base. Leslie Miley, who was a part of the Twitter layoffs in October, told IBT that he believes the company’s struggling user growth is partly intertwined with the lack of staff diversity. “This is why Twitter is stuck at 320 million users,” Miley said. “It doesn't have people making product decisions who understand the use case of the most prolific communities on Twitter.” "We really need to be reflective of the people that we serve, what their concerns are, how they want to participate in the world, what communities they're a part of, and build tools to make their lives easier," Dorsey said at an event at the company’s headquarters last week, according to CNET . But to impress, the numbers will have to change. 12. Make a Difference With Your Billions. Twitter stands for “freedom of expression,” Dorsey said at the Flight conference in October. It’s a motto Dorsey and his predecessors have echoed as the company has grown.

Dorsey is known for lip service to high-minded ideals; unlike Mark Zuckerberg he has yet to put his considerable wealth to work to create change. “Dorsey’s record of charitable contributions so far has been small, but he has been known to use his social media power to raise funds for charity:water, and auction off time with himself to support entrepreneurship and education,” according to InsidePhilanthropy.com . That has begun to change. In the initial public offering for his other company, Square, Dorsey disclosed that he would give 20 percent of the stock to his charity, Start Small Foundation. In October, Dorsey also gave one-third of his company stock back to the employee equity, a commitment to his own employees. As for me: I&#39;d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small. I&#39;m confident we can make Twitter big!

✌️ Jack Dorsey in 140 Characters or Less Jack Dorsey in 140 Characters or Less Ariel Bleicher Jack Dorsey in 140 Characters or Less More If Jack Dorsey could be described in 140 characters or less, he might be summed up as: @Jack is the best kind of mutation in the evolution story of today’s #techonomy. This is the opinion of Shoshana Zuboff , a retired professor of Harvard Business School and co-author of The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism. She spoke after Dorsey in an opening session of yesterday’s Techonomy conference titled “21st Century Individuals vs. 20th Century Organizations.” Of course, Zuboff said this, as retired Harvard professors are prone to do, in many more than 140 characters. But if you’re the kind of person who believes that technology can change the world and that rogue entrepreneurs like Dorsey are now the best-adapted creatures for putting technology in the hands of lots of people, then you would probably find that the point of her 20th Century Oration actually makes a great deal of sense in this 21st Century Economy.

That point, as Zuboff might communicate it using the 21st Century Communication Platform, is this: The @Microsoft business/economic/social model is old hat Organizations must now distribute tools/technologies/social platforms that enable people to live life #astheychoose But organizations aren’t doing that! PEOPLE are moving faster than organizations Which is why #oureconomysucks right now Society is changing, but most organizations can’t adapt because they cling to the old @Microsoft model. It’s like they have #dinosaurDNA So we need good ‘mutations’ like @Jack to shake things up and make new companies like @Twitter & @Square that *can* adapt And that is how a new, better capitalist economy can evolve! (In reality, Zuboff doesn’t appear to use Twitter.) Had Dorsey spoken after Zuboff, it would have been interesting to see how he took the news of being a mutation. Probably, he would have folded his hands in his lap and said calmly that he thought the title “delightful.” Dorsey, who was interviewed by Techonomy’s founder, host and CEO David Kirkpatrick, seems to find many things about his life and his business ventures delightful.

For example, personalized advertisements that pop up in your Twitter stream, Dorsey said, are “a delightful experience.” The inherent delightfulness of “all this amazing content,” he continued, will make Twitter users want to check it out by clicking links, which will please Twitter’s advertisers, who will buy more streaming ads and make Twitter the $7 billion company it is predicted to be. In fact, 1 to 5 percent of Twitter users are already engaging with the ads in their stream, Dorsey said in an attempt to appease Kirkpatrick’s skepticism. One percent, Kirkpatrick conceded, is an impressive success rate in the world of online advertising. Another thing Dorsey delights in is baristas who know his name and his drink preference even before he walks into a café. This, he said, happened just the day before, on Saturday, when he bought a cappuccino. The experience could only have happened because he and the café use a software he invented called Square, which is well on its way to making cash registers and credit card machines arcane. According to Dorsey, one service Square offers that’s really delightful is it lets you use your smartphones to open a credit tab at a store from halfway down the block.

If you want, you can set up the application so that just before you enter the store, your name, picture, and purchase history pop up on the merchant’s tablet or smartphone. You can then be greeted by name and buy a drink without ever having to open your wallet. In this way, Dorsey said, Square “provides the potential to delight the customer,” something so-called near field communication technology (NFC) doesn’t do. (NFC, which companies like Google and Apple are trying to popularize, lets customers pay for stuff by waving their smartphones in front of a register.) What is perhaps most remarkable about Dorsey is that he can find the time to delight in anything at all. He puts in 8 hours a day at each company, he told Kirkpatrick. Apparently, it’s not easy being a mutation; even Dorsey admits that new things can be “potentially scary” and “not fun all the time.” But it’s better, and far more delightful, than dying out.

With 200 million people using Twitter, and Square now processing something like 11 million transactions a day, it is hard not to agree with Zuboff that Dorsey is a very powerful and a very desirable mutation to have in the newly evolving tech economy. To watch live streaming of the Techonomy 2011 conference, click here . Reblog

Question: 'One could change the world in 140 characters' is the motto of Jack Dorsey, the founder of which website?
Answer: TWITTER